1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to apparatus and a method and for feeding raw material into a quartz crucible during manufacture of single-crystal by CZ method.
2. Description of the Prior Art
High-purity single-crystal silicon is mainly used as substrates in semiconductor manufacturing. Generally, a method for manufacturing single-crystal silicon is based on the CZ method. In the CZ method, a quartz crucible into which lump polycrystalline silicon materials are fed, is disposed inside an apparatus for manufacturing single-crystal silicon. The lump polycrystalline silicon is melted into a melt by a heater surrounding a quartz crucible. Furthermore, after dipping a seed which is disposed on a seed holder into the melt, the seed holder and quartz crucible rotate in the same direction or in opposite directions. Meanwhile the seed holder is pulled to grow single-crystal silicon.
In the CZ method, a predetermined amount of polycrystalline silicon material must be fed into the quartz crucible before manufacturing the single-crystal silicon. The polycrystalline silicon is lumpy, has acute angles and extremely high hardness. Moreover, since the quartz crucible is brittlepiece, a lump of polycrystalline silicon with 20.about.110 mm in size, which occupies over 90% volume of the quartz crucible, is fed into the quartz crucible by man-hand in order to prevent the crucible being broken. Therefore, feeding raw material is a really simple operation, but the using time for feeding raw material, in particular for manufacturing larger single-crystal silicon, become more longer.